


I know the afterglow

by magdaliny



Series: quiet americans [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Y'ALL KNOW WHAT YOU'RE HERE FOR, listen I don't need to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:29:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magdaliny/pseuds/magdaliny
Summary: “Go on,” Steve says, putting his bookmark in.  “What'd you read?”“Well, we've been escalating our fooling around,” James says, which—okay, isn't at all the direction Steve was expecting this conversation to go.





	I know the afterglow

### August 2017

 

“So I was reading something the other day,” James says.

“Uh oh,” Steve says reflexively, and then looks up from _The Night Watch_ with a wince. That pronouncement always seems to result in James painting something unnerving at best, or trying something borderline insane in the garden at worst, and although James won't admit it, the time Steve arrived at two in the morning after a delayed flight to find James asleep on the roof next to a half-built solar panel was probably also prefaced by _So I was reading this article_...

Steve's had some pretty earnest thoughts about bribing Gladys to sabotage the ethernet cables, sometimes, is what he's saying.

James, shooting Steve a fondly tolerant look from where he's lounging cat-like on the bed, improves the effect by lifting one eyebrow. 

“Go on,” Steve says, putting his bookmark in. “What'd you read?”

“Well, we've been escalating our fooling around,” James says, which—okay, isn't at all the direction Steve was expecting this conversation to go. While Steve's dog-paddling his way into that, James continues, “And you know I'm happy with whatever we get up to, and if you don't want to it's fine, but—”

Holy crow. “Did you clear your search history, at least?”

“It was a _PubMed article_ ,” James says, with a glare he absolutely doesn't mean, “About guys with ED and prostate stimulation. Apparently it's supposed to be good even if—you know.”

Steve puts his book down and comes over to the bed. James moves over to give him some room, and then headbutts him in the ribs when he doesn't lay down fast enough. Steve pillows his head on his folded arms. James looks grumpy, but not uncomfortable, so Steve doesn't feel like he needs to circle around the perimeter any. Even if James is, a little. _I read a medical study about erectile dysfunction_ isn't nearly the same thing as _I'd like you to fuck me, stud_.

“Have you been thinking I'm hard-up?” Steve asks. “Because I'm happy with everything we do, too. Nobody's parts have to find their way inside anybody else.”

“I know,” James says. “But it might be fun. The broken dick brigade can't all be wrong.”

Steve shuffles closer and digs his thumb into the violin-string tenseness of James's neck. James obligingly drops his head. “You don't exactly have ED,” Steve points out. “And not everybody likes that kind of thing. It can be—a lot. But, hey, you know me. I like any plan where I get to see you naked.”

“Given enough warning,” James teases. Steve makes a face at him, but he's glad they're at the point where they can joke about it now. “So—you wanna?”

“What, _now_?” Steve sits up as James hops off the bed. “I hate to break it to you, pal, but that article might've been skimpy on the details, we're gonna need—” and a plastic bottle hits him in the chest. Steve picks it up and immediately drops it, covering his face with his hands. “Oh god, please tell me you ordered this online, _please_ tell me you didn't buy it from the blue shop in the village.”

“Marjorie's a perfectly nice lady,” James says. “I had _questions_ , okay, and if you thought I was trusting the internet's opinions on _anal lube—_ ”

“I'm going to have to stand in line with her at the bakery and she's going to know _exactly what we do in bed_.”

“Could be worse. I make a hell of a lot more noise when you get the knots out of my neck than you do when you're getting your rocks off, sweetheart, so if you think the neighbors don't already have ideas about what we do in the sack, I'm afraid I got news for you.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, letting himself tip backwards onto the bed, falling just short of the pillows. “That's helpful. I'm really turned on _now_.”

“Nudity warning,” James says, and Steve opens his eyes and says, “Okay, I was lying,” and gets two armfuls of warm skin as his reward.

They kiss for so long Steve starts wondering if James has changed his mind. When James finally pulls back, Steve nearly takes the opportunity to say that it's okay if he has, but James raises both eyebrows dangerously as he starts unbuttoning Steve's shirt, and Steve shuts his mouth. Opens it, a little, when James sits on his heels and runs his fingers through his hair, pushing it out of his face. His pinked-up chin. Christ. Rumpled he's almost too beautiful for Steve to handle.

“Earth to Steve,” James says. “Get my arm, if you wanna be helpful.”

It would probably be faster and more dignified if they attended to themselves, but Steve still manages to get the prosthetic off around the same time their clothes wind up on the floor. Steve kneads at the irritated skin of James's stump while James roots around in the blankets.

“How d'you want to...?” Steve trails off as James throws the bottle back at him. Steve glowers at the label, which still, infuriatingly, reads _Gun Oil_. “I want it known I resent everything about this.”

“Lube didn't have catchy names in the Stone Age?”

“We called it _Vaseline_ ,” Steve says, “And we were _grateful_ ,” and swats at him.

James swats back, missing by a mile, and says, “On my stomach, I think. That way you got the wheel, and I—” He tucks his chin, almost shy.

“Yeah?”

“I'll, uh—feel better.” James stretches out in a strategic sort of way that means he doesn't have to make eye contact. Steve watches the tender new muscles moving in his back and can't help reaching out to touch. He seems to relax a little as Steve's hand strokes up his spine.

Steve hears the click of his own throat as he swallows grit. “Can I, um.”

“Anything you want,” James says, “I'll kick you if I don't like it,” as Steve manages to finish: “—use my mouth?” He knows he's red from about the ribs up, and the way James is looking at him isn't helping. James doesn't mean those long, considering looks to be hot stuff, is the thing, but Steve has a weakness for being stared at by people more competent than him, and this one's a killer; he'd go to his knees if he wasn't already on them.

“I'm convinced that can't possibly do anything for you,” James says at last, “But we've previously determined that I can _talk_ you into coming, so, sure. Go nuts.” Steve must look like his birthday and Christmas have all come at once, because James says, “I'll never understand sexual people. What's it like in there? It must be—”

Steve doesn't find out what it must be like, because James cuts off when Steve kisses his spine, just between the dimples of his hip-bones. He doesn't kick Steve off, though, or flinch. Just paying all of his attention to something new. Steve feels bold, like he's stolen something. He slides his hands under James's thighs and over his waist, interlacing fingers, settling in.

When James asks—and he'll ask, or Steve doesn't know him at all—Steve will be hard-pressed to explain why he likes this so much. He feels it in a dark, warm, animal place inside him, some primitive corner where inexplicable hungers come from. He likes that it's a different kind of vulnerability than fucking. It's one thing to trust someone with your delicate parts, and another to let them put their _face_ there; it makes him hot all over. Part of him wants to go rough, to lick in full and greedy and make a sweaty mess of them both, but he reins himself in. James, who seems to spend 95% of his waking life with either paint or dirt under his nails, or improbably behind his ears, definitely doesn't mind messy—Steve's tolerance is a lot lower, which surprised both of them—but Steve doesn't think that this is the right time or place for hedonism.

James doesn't make a sound, but he becomes steadily more boneless under Steve's hands. Time goes syrupy; it might be five minutes or twenty before Steve comes up for a break. As much as James teases Steve about having a hair trigger, it can take him a while to get going, sometimes, especially when he's focused, so he's still not quite hard by the time he crawls up the bed and tucks himself into James's side. James's eyes are closed until Steve stops moving, at which point he opens them and says, “C'mere.”

“You sure?” Steve asks, leaning in anyway.

“Christ, I don't care,” James says. It's about the laziest kiss in the world; neither of them puts much effort into it. James doesn't even lift his head off the pillow. When Steve puts his head down too, James curls his fingers into the notch at Steve's throat.

“Was that okay?”

“Mm.” James smiles. “You're not gonna like my answer.”

“I can take it.”

“Ain't a reflection on you, Don Quan,” James says. “Felt like getting just the right amount of high. When everything's fuzzy and warm and the world's all full of stars.” Steve must grimace a little in spite of himself, because James adds, “I did _say_. Don't worry, Rogers, you're not going to trigger a relapse or anything, if you do it again. Which I wouldn't turn down, for the record.”

“What a review,” Steve says. “ _Wouldn't turn it down_. Gee, such enthusiasm.”

“I could bring myself to let you,” James says. “I could suffer through it, you know, if you're _bored_ , on the odd _Wednesday—_ ”

“You are so full of shit,” Steve says admiringly.

 

☆

 

They don't end up trying anything else that day—ten minutes later, the front door slams open and a small voice calls, “Auntie Gladys? Are you there?” and Steve vaults up to lock the bedroom door while James laughs himself into a fit—or even that week, because come Friday the weather turns freakishly hot, and it's all either of them can do to seek out shady patches of the garden and sprawl like the dead in the damp grass. The air's so heavy they can't smell the ocean, and even the bees seem to trudge wearily from flower to flower.

Eva's place on the hill, according to James, always turns into an inhabitable greenhouse in this kind of heat. On the second day, she sends the kids over with a couple of tents while she and Tabby escape to the seaside. Steve helps the boys set theirs up in the oak shadows by the shed, while James, since Lily's emphatic that she can do it herself, reads _A Comet in Moominland_ aloud to her while she pitches her own tent in the front room.

To Lily's delight—either in solidarity, or because the bunk closet's turned into a sauna—Gladys tosses a narrow mattress down the ladder and joins her. After dinner, while the boys and are shrieking their way through a war game with water pistols, Steve peeks in to catch Gladys and Lily curled up in the armchair, poring over a gigantic anatomy textbook like it's a bedtime story. Lily's holding her arm out across her body, probing a tendon as she squints over her elbow at the page. There's an electric lantern hanging in Lily's little yellow tent, making it glow from within. The soft light on Gladys's face makes her look about nineteen. Steve sneaks away, feeling weirdly raw. When he gets out back, Jakob is leaning over the fence and directing the battle like a general, while James leans across the other way, conferring with Gertie. Tobermory and Miss Havisham, quarantined in the Katz's yard so nobody gets run over by a piledriver made of dog, watch with captivated lolling grins, their paws up on the hedge. It looks like a Rockwell, milleniumized.

For six days they sleep with all the windows and doors open, covers torn off the bed, only wearing boxer shorts in the name of preserving their dignity. Not that Eva's little pack of nudists would care—Benjamin especially can't seem to keep decent for longer than five minutes—and Eva's made comments about sunbathing on her terrace that Steve's going to keep pretending he never heard, but being looked at by Gladys with his clothes _on_ is a little like being x-rayed, so Steve's not risking the alternative. James, unselfconscious about nudity for entirely different reasons than the kids, is just as grumpy as Benj about the whole situation. Steve's run hotter since the serum, but he guesses he's also better at thermoregulation somehow, because the heat doesn't plaster him as much as everyone else. He spends the worst part of the afternoons on cold hose duty for the kids, James, and the poor shaggy dogs.

The heat breaks with a storm front so vicious that James has to run out in the worst of it, covering delicate plants, moving rocks, driving vegetable stakes hard into the raised plots. Steve marvels at it, at the incredible smell of wet soil. It's different here than it was in France, in Austria; in the glacial mountains they couldn't smell it at all. Must be the chemical composition of the dirt. The ground's so dry the water just runs off of it, at first, a ghostly flash flood that doesn't leave any traces. Neighbors down the lane made the mistake of ignoring the hosepipe ban during the summer, and by afternoon their beautiful green yard's a muddy quagmire worse than anything Steve saw in the war. Poor guys—it's only going to get worse. The weather folks don't see an end in sight.

Gladys is at work. The garden's safe. The kids have gone home.

James just _looks_ at him.

“You could've said no, you sap,” Steve points out, as he's dragged down the hall, “They coulda gone up to their grandma's place, or the lake, or—”

“Is that dissension I hear in the ranks?”

“I'm just _saying_.”

“Less talk, more naked,” James says, snapping his fingers. It's not until James is laid out belly-down on the bed, Steve at his side rolling closer, that James looks up and says, “I didn't mind the break, actually. I mean, I probably would've enjoyed it if we'd kept going, but.” He shrugs, the muscles in his neck loose. “I kinda felt like I was winding up. Like I'd've tried more than I really wanted. Goaded you into putting your whole hand in me or something crazy.”

Steve, fumbling the cap like a kid who's never handled a bottle of slick in his life, says: “I, uh. I'm pretty sure I would've stopped you. Before that point. _I've_ never—” His face flaming.

James grins at him, sinful-sharp. “Go on.” Hell. Steve clears his throat. “ _Oh_. You want? I can do that, I got hands. Well, one. I don't think Stark really designed the other one for—”

“You want these in you or not?” Steve threatens, pointing wet fingers, putting all of his energy into not stumbling; James looks impressed and mimes zipping his mouth shut. His eyes are amused but Steve has to check. “You sure? 'Cause it's your dance card. You tell me when you wanna bow out.”

“Ask me again and I'm gonna start thinking you're not interested,” James says. “C'mon, before I die of anticipation,” and Steve puts his mouth on James's shoulder as he does what he's told, certain if he makes eye contact right now he'll— On the heels of that he wonders whether that wouldn't be a good thing, if he would be more focused if he hitched himself closer to James's firm hip and just—and then James makes a noise he's never made before, curious and low, and Steve doesn't need any help, suddenly, being focused.

“Yeah?”

“Huh,” James says. Steve risks a glance, nose brushing James's skin. “S'interesting.”

“Good?”

“Mhm,” James says, which isn't quite _yes_ but certainly isn't _no_ , so Steve keeps going, petting in careful, slow and then: deep. It's been so long he's forgotten how hot it is inside a person, how delicate. He's seen more people torn open than he's felt his way into, and he can't help mixing them up: the red interiors of living things. He freezes, petrified by his own strength for a long moment before he can convince himself to move. God _damn._ Why does anyone _let_ anyone else do this to them, he wonders, half-hysterical—how do we open ourselves up like this, like it's normal, like it's nothing?

But James's metronome-steady breathing evens Steve out, and before long it feels casual, laying here, his fingers tucked and moving inside someone else's body. It should feel stranger than this, surely. Steve's been with maybe two dozen men, and three women, and almost every time it'd felt like someone was waiting on the sidelines with a stopwatch, both of them racing to the finish line. Sometimes it'd been real, like when the cops could appear at any moment, or once, memorably, in England, when bombs were falling on some other nearby place and maybe closer soon enough—but even times when there hadn't been a rush, there'd been a sense of urgency in the room. Here Steve feels as though he could explore for hours and James would let him. Would encourage him, even. He presses his open mouth to James's skin, and again, and realizes: _I like this_. He'd wondered if it would be awkward with nothing to guide him, no goal to work towards, at least on James's part. In the midst of James's quietness his own need feels very far away.

Steve lets his other hand wander over James's ribs, his chest, pressing against his diaphragm to feel him breathe. He's careful around the port and avoids anything lower. James used to be a lot softer than Steve, when they'd started—the dwindling effects of the anti-androgens, had been their guess—but now his body hair is rough as Steve's, his skin drier, the harsh white soap he uses leaving him smelling like nothing when he gets out of the bath. As Steve tucks his nose up behind James's ear and tugs the gauged earring into his mouth, he's glad of summer, of the work and the heat and the sweat; the comforting animal smell of him here.

James pulls in a breath that ends in a sound: it might be “—op.” Steve stills his hand. James twists and says, “I want to try—you said you'd call it if I went too far.”

Steve lets the earring slip out of his mouth. “Yeah. If.”

“So do you want to?”

“Do I want to—”

“Fuck me,” James suggests, and Steve jerks against him; his fingers sliding free. “Not that you're _not_ , obviously, but—”

Jesus Christ. “Do _you_ want to?”

“Yeah,” James says, like he's admitting to a misdemeanor. “I sort of assumed, actually. Hoped. That we'd be working up to that.”

“Hoped,” Steve says stupidly. He blinks; shakes his head. His damp hand on James's back. “Sorry, I. You've been thinking about it?”

“Sure.”

“But you don't...”

“What,” James says, “Only folks with libidos are allowed to have fantasies?”

Of course not, Steve thinks, but he had been assuming that, hadn't he; it hadn't even occurred to him. Hadn't thought of it like a thing you could want, not in a sexual way, but just—want. Like you can want food even when you're not hungry. Or take craving out of it: maybe it's like wanting a—a nap, or an especially good book. A break. Something pleasant.

“Yeah?” Steve says instead, because he's pretty sure James has read a lot of that on his face, from the way James's mouth started to curl. “Okay. What've you been daydreaming about, then?”

James pulls an expression that might be a blush, if he was a blushing man. “Just like this. Except you're—”

Steve raises his eyebrows and lets it float. He knows he shouldn't, it's cruel, but he's enjoying not being the flustered one, for once.

“I like it when you fall asleep on top of me,” James mumbles, pulling the pillow closer and turning his head on it, tucking his stump under the edge. “Do you think that's weird? I should hate being pinned down, if anything.”

“I remember drowning,” Steve says. James twitches visibly. “When the plane went down. Or, well, I thought I was going to drown. But I like swimming more now than I did before. Brains don't read psychology textbooks, I guess.”

“Thank god,” James says fervently, and they look at each other, and start sniggering. It takes a while for them to stop. Just when Steve thinks he's finished, James crosses his eyes, and they're off again. He breathes in, hiccups, and breathes out steadier.

“I've only—stop that!” as James's eyes start drifting. Steve pinches him. James bites his lip. “I've only ever done it twice, so I can't promise you it'll be any good.”

“Like I'd know the difference. Ever? Doing, or—”

“Well,” Steve says, flushing, “I've been done _to_ , plenty,” and instead of hiding his face slides his fingers carefully back inside James where he's blood-hot, relaxed. “You're probably—if you want to. You're probably ready.”

“Ready when you are,” James counters. Threateningly: “But I want some of those stories later, Mr. Experienced. How come you still get so wound up, then, if you've done all that?”

“Mostly,” Steve mutters, “There wasn't much _talking_ ,” and James shows all of his wicked teeth. “Did you get rubbers to go with that fancy slick of yours, or d'you want—”

“Top drawer,” James says, and nothing else, not until Steve's climbing over him and figuring out where he's going to settle his weight, at which point James sighs: “Okay.” Small and surprised and, Steve thinks, pleased. Gambling, Steve lets his wrists go limp and flops fully onto James's back, hugging his sides. “Yeah, okay,” James says, high-pitched enough he almost loses his customary rasp, “You can stay there forever. This is your new job. Sorry. I don't make the rules.”

“What's the pay scale for a weighted blanket?” Steve asks, and James twists to hit Steve's ribs with his stump. “You got benefits? Pension plan?”

“You're _on_ the benefits,” James says, which Steve figures is about as good an invitation as he's ever going to get.

“S'easier if you breathe,” Steve says, pushing up onto one hand and lining himself up with the other. “Just try to relax.” Oh god, he thinks; oh god, be careful, don't fuck this up.

“You're not that big,” James scoffs. A moment later: “Oh.”

“I _told_ you.”

“How does that—”

“I know,” Steve says, “It's weird,” and James bursts out laughing.

“There's a part this that _ain't_ weird? No, fuck, hang on, I can't—you won't be able while I'm laughing.”

Steve's suddenly grateful that James isn't his first, because he can see a vision of his seventeen-year-old self in perfect clarity, giving up at the first sign of trouble. Steve'd been in his twenties before he'd learned you could laugh during sex, and then he'd never wanted to have any other kind—not that he'd gotten much of that for a while, but it'd been a revelation then, and he's viciously glad of it now, as James's shoulders shake. Steve bites the back of James's neck, just because it's there.

“Okay,” James says. “Okay.”

This time Steve slides in high and so easy it startles him, gravity suddenly working in his favor; he has to plant his other hand on James's hip to stop himself, gripping hard, harder than he intended. James makes a small noise, more querying than startled. Still:

“You okay?” Steve asks. He's—god. He's shaking.

“Fine,” James says, settling loose-limbed under Steve, finding a comfortable position, his spine lengthening and his muscles—for a bright-white moment it's almost too much. “Why'd you stop?”

“Hang—” Steve breathes out. In. “Hang on. Gimme a—gimme a minute.” He stays very still. The rain drumming on the windows.

“Feels good?” It sounds like a guess.

“Oh god you got no idea,” Steve says, all in a tumble, and surprised: laughs. Gasps, really. James laughs too, carefully through his nose.

When Steve thinks he can handle moving, he gingerly lowers himself to his elbows. His belly fits snug against the dip of James's back. James isn't even looking at him—can't, in their position, but Steve curls over and ducks his head anyway, forehead against the sticking-up knobs of James's spine between his shoulders, feeling flayed raw and open. Fuzzy above the waist and livewire sparking below it. The prickling sweat-clammy back of his neck.

Steve doesn't start until James makes an impatient noise at him, and then he leans deep and rocks, slow circles that aren't much motion at all, just small rolls of his hips. He has no idea what James might prefer but Steve likes this: more pressure than punch, quieter, not as intense. Subtle as it is, the state Steve's in, he'll probably come long before James gets tired. He can feel the syrupy ache of it, waiting.

The second time Steve'd had sex in a bed, with a door that locked, the guy had done this to him. His name was Johnnie, or he'd claimed it was, and he'd been a big burly police cadet with the gentlemanly ambition of becoming a winemaker. He'd tried to pay Steve, after, which is how they did things then, but Steve had pushed his hand away and said _Frankly I should be paying you_ , and they'd wound up having another two rounds before Steve stumbled home late to a worried Bucky, who'd taken one look at Steve, rolled his eyes, and grumbled through putting wash-water on to heat. Grumbled, like Steve wasn't going to do the exact same thing for Bucky within the week, when Bucky'd bit off more than he could chew with Henny, the Amazonian saxophone player at the Pulpit who'd worn red lipstick in bed and liked her men to do the same.

Steve prefers to be in James's position, historically, but— _Jesus_ it can be good, like this.

Steve's so dizzy with it, so absorbed in keeping his movements steady and gentle that it's a while before he notices that James is breathing harder than he was, his forehead pressed down and his shoulders coming up. His arm's snuck under the pillow to grip the other side.

“Doin' all right?” Steve manages to ask.

“I,” James says, “Yeah.” He breathes out audibly. Shifts his hips and s- _stretches_. Steve has to bite his cheek. Hoarse: “Keep going.”

Steve does. His pulse in his throat and the beat of the rain on the glass, the rain and their lungs and the tick of a clock, somewhere, down the hall; it's so quiet. It catches him under the ribs and tugs. He's not close and doesn't want to be, wants to stay here forever in the warm, rocking, James's baby hairs against his cheek. He doesn't want the world to come rushing back in. Tries not to think about it. Knowing, mournfully, it'll have to eventually.

When it does it's from an unexpected quarter: James moves without warning. Not quite a flinch, but a flex, the muscles of his back drawing up tight. He says: “Oh.” Neutrally, really, maybe a little confused. So it startles Steve all the more when suddenly he goes tense _everywhere_ ; Steve gasps against his neck, trying not to jerk into it. Slow, he tells himself, just move, don't—James makes a high, shocked sound—slow, slow _—_ it's almost as if— _rhythmic_ , it's almost like—and Steve thinks: shit, should I _stop_? oh fuck I never _asked_ , I didn't think, what if he doesn't want to; should I—and the decision is taken mercifully out of his hands as—blindsided, too soon, _hurting_ —orgasm hits him like a truck.

 _God_.

Battered. He feels—

Steve rolls off to the side, not letting go of James's waist, pressed up all along the length of him. Too much. Skin. He has too much. Electrified. James's ribs rising and falling quick under his arm, then slower. Oh god. Did they— Breathe. His dry mouth.

“You're going to be an insufferable rooster about this,” James says, muffled against the pillow, “Aren't you,” and turns his head, the rest of his body following.

“I,” Steve says: “Would you like me to be?” When what he really wants to say is: Was it all right? Did I do the right thing? Are you okay? He thinks he's going to panic but doesn't; can't, with James's too-gentle gaze on him, their skin sweat-stuck together and cooling. He's still shaking, he realizes.

“Tell me if,” Steve tries; _tell me if you liked it, or didn't, tell me how it—_

James reaches out and Steve closes his eyes. Two fingers, coming to rest against his lips. He still—he wants. Steve opens his mouth to the first knuckle, searchingly, as though he has any hope of reading fingerprints with his tongue. His skin hot and tight. He slides down until he comes up against palm and then opens his eyes, daring—and slams them immediately shut again. James's curled-up smiling mouth.

“Tell you what?” James asks. His voice low, gravelly. Pushing down just slightly on Steve's tongue. Not letting him give a response; not expecting one. “You didn't hurt me, if that's what you're asking. I liked it. It was—fun. Don't know if I'd wanna do it again in a hurry, mind you. You were right, it's a lot. I—”

He stops. His fingers loose in Steve's mouth and their ankles tangled together. Steve wants to grab James's wrist and make him—and—but he doesn't.

“It was nice,” James says at last.

 _It was nice_ : James had said that differently, once. In DC he'd said it a lot. Fierce and defensive and a little too fast, like he was expecting someone—expecting Steve—to say: no, it wasn't like that, it wasn't actually nice at all, you're wrong. Or like he was scared someone was going to reach in and change it. Steve had always felt—humbled, when James released the death grip he'd had on those intermezzo memories, letting one or two slip through his fingers like that: _it was nice_. Handing Steve a baby bird and trusting he wasn't going to crush it.

Now James says it like he's laughing, no fear, his burnt-coffee voice and the rumble in his chest and Steve sucks hard on his fingers, desperate.

James slips a third finger inside. The littlest one rubbing the wet corner of his mouth. Steve hears himself moan.

“Wow,” James says. “Look at you. That feel nice, sweetheart? Look at you. You're out to Mars. I bet I could—”

Steve doesn't hear what James could do with him, because he jostles his fingers in Steve's mouth, then, and it's nothing like a thrust but holy god it's enough, and Steve clutches James's wrist _hard_ and whites out.

Light.

A touch on the hinge of his jaw. His eyelids twitch.

“—something like that,” Steve hears, as he pulls the loose threads of himself back together; he feels like he's been smeared across the universe. “Oh, hey,” James says, when Steve opens his eyes. “Look who's joined the land of the living.”

Steve slurs out, “That's debatable.” He sounds hoarse, like he's been—well. He clears his throat. His face still hot. “Are you. Are you okay?”

James wrinkles his nose like he's trying not to smile. “Am I _okay_? That bad, huh?”

“No, just—I thought you—” and Steve looks down and: oh. Answers his own question. Jesus. He wants to push James over and shove his face against James's belly and—if it was anyone else, he would.

But: “I don't know,” James says, despite the evidence.

“Because,” Steve starts, not knowing how to finish. Nonsensically: “Or...”

“I've only ever seen it happen to somebody else. I think for you it must be...” James shifts his jaw and squints and then, giving up on words, makes a percussive noise and mimes an explosion.

Steve swallows. “Yeah.”

“Obviously I can't compare, s'not like I got any reference. But.” James shrugs. “I guess I did. It was just—I dunno, like a sneeze. Felt nice enough. Surprised me, though. I didn't think I—” He grimaces; turns it into a smile. “Even if I'd been expecting it I wouldn't've been. You know?”

“I didn't know if I should stop.”

“Glad you didn't.”

“I'm—that's good.”

James looks at him hard, then; _into_ him, and for so long Steve has to fight against fidgeting, or saying something empty, just to divert the laser of attention.

“We never did this,” James finally says, “Before,” and Steve's breath catches.

He shakes his head, slowly.

“Why not?” James asks.

“It was,” Steve says, and stops to lick his lips; it's important, he thinks, to say it right, not necessarily the truth of it but what they'd thought was the truth of it, then. What they'd believed. The certainty of it, the way it'd felt inevitable. “We decided we weren't gonna be that way, with each other when, when things were the way they were, and there was all of New York—all of—everything. Didn't want to steal each other's chances, I guess. We, uh, we fooled around some. But we agreed,” a squirming in his stomach, feeling like he's betraying Bucky, ridiculously; betraying _something,_ “We talked about how when the war was over, and we'd gone home, if we hadn't found girls in a year we'd. Give it a shot. Go upstate and—”

He stops because James's hand is over his mouth.

“I was a dumb sonovabitch,” James says thoughtfully. Steve's torn between the desire to agree with him and the desire to defend Bucky. James, smiling, taking pity on him, leaves his hand where it is and doesn't make him decide. But James's smile goes abruptly brittle, hard-edged, and he says too quick: “I'm glad,” his hand tensing; he drops it to the sheets, “I'm really _fucking_ glad,” and Steve doesn't know what to do, until: “—that nobody did _that_ to me in the fifties, or the nineties, or—”

James's taut white knuckles. His veins. Steve grabs his hand and digs his thumbs between the tendons, meaningfully.

“I feel—really lucky.” Very quiet. “Just. Basically all the time.”

“Yeah,” Steve whispers.

“It's very...intimate,” James says, “Killing people,” and Steve clamps his teeth together. He doesn't want to hear this, now, in the warm space they've made. But it's clear James needs to say it, for all it's shaking him. “Even when it's at the end of a scope, there's this—little moment. You can't get away from it unless you, I dunno, set a bomb. Even then. I always assumed,” pausing, unsteadily, to frown at something out in space, on the other side of Steve's head; “I say _assumed_. I guess I really mean I didn't think about it at all. Castration thing aside. But I thought it was the same, sex—that it was like killing because it was violent. Not because it was intimate. I couldn't figure out why anybody liked it.” His fingers curling against Steve's palm. “But that was. I can see the appeal, now. Sort of. That's about as close as you can possibly get to somebody else, huh? Without taking off their skin.”

“Thomas Lynch said sex and death were nearly the same,” Steve says. “He called them the horizontal mysteries.”

James looks relieved. “Now look who's the college man,” he says, and Steve knows he means: _thank you_.

“What do you wanna do now?” Steve asks, shifting closer.

James blinks once, twice, again, slower each time. Steve guesses at the same moment James decides: “A nap,” they say together—and laugh. Simple as that.

So they do.

**Author's Note:**

> I promised another four ficlets after this one, but I'm afraid my free time's about to be chopped in half, so in order to wrap up the series without driving myself nuts, I'm going to be cutting at least one ficlet that isn't strictly necessary to the arc. Sorry, friends! There's still two or three to go, though, and they should all be up in the next few weeks, god willing and the crik don't rise.
> 
> A while back I [wrote a meta post](https://redstarwhitestar.tumblr.com/post/165368735885/im-really-interested-now-would-you-be-willing-to) about how _Moment_ was my Great Big Secret Asexual Manifesto -- not that it's subtle in THIS fic, or anything. (Also: Steve and J fooling around on-screen is, by a crazy margin, my most requested fic ever. You all _really_ wanted to see these two get their freak on. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write stuff I'd normally have told myself I couldn't, guys. You're the best.  <3)


End file.
